Tiger Monitoring Goes On In Zhuravliny

13.01.2017

(c) PRNCO «Tiger Centre»

In January, we received new photographs from Zhuravliny Wildlife Refuge located in Jewish Autonomous Province. As we can see, the photos of tigers were taken on the same places but in different seasons. Thanks to monitoring efforts during the last three years, it became possible to identify the places frequently visited by the tigers. First and foremost, we see scent mark trees on the photographs. These “border-marking poles” were discovered thanks to longstanding tracking of animals. As we can see, for the last three years the places have been visited on a regular basis but with different intervals. It is hard to tell why those trees were chosen by the tigers to mark their scent on them. Probably, some other wild animals marked them earlier. It is also possible that the tigers set themselves those points, and other animals began to visit them and exchange information. Through visiting and “updating information points” the animals receive information about each other, namely what species (their age and physiological state) marked their scent. Thus, exchange information occurs between individuals of the same and different species.

(c) PRNCO «Tiger Centre»

Monitoring activities are carried out by specialists of the Centre for Rehabilitation and Reintroduction of Tigers and Other Rare Animals, Hunting Management Department of Jewish Autonomous Province, Wildlife Conservation Society, A.N Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution (Russian Academy of Sciences), Bastak and Khingansky nature reserves, and Zhuravliny Wildlife Refuge with financial support from International Fund for Animals Welfare (IFAW) and the Phoenix Fund.